<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>What's it even mean anyway? by CO32minus</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26100865">What's it even mean anyway?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CO32minus/pseuds/CO32minus'>CO32minus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aromantic Hinata Shouyou, Aromantic Kageyama Tobio, Break Up, F/M, Gen, Kageyama is a trans girl because I say so, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:34:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,784</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26100865</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CO32minus/pseuds/CO32minus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Yer a great friend, the best, couldn’t ask for better,” Atsumu laughs then. It’s cute, genuine, sad. It’s one Shouyou had heard before, he usually followed up with a ‘don’t worry,’ or ‘it’ll be ok,’ or some mix of straight forward and poetry that just happens to be exactly what Atsumu (or whoever really) needs to hear because Shouyou is a great friend. None of that seems appropriate now. </p><p>“But yer not a good boyfriend."</p><p>-----</p><p>AKA Hinata Shouyou has dated a lot, and maybe that's all it is.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hinata Shouyou &amp; Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>What's it even mean anyway?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>*Clapping to a beat* I! Didn't! Beta! This! At all!<br/>Didn't even read it through once because you know what, who cares? it's 3 am and I just really wanted to scratch my brain and think about aromantic Hinata Shouyou. Because I like it. </p><p>If you also happen to like it I guess throw me a bone (comment), bc that's cool, but also I really reaaaally wrote this to feed my own brain worms.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Yer a bad boyfriend Shou.” </p><p>Atsumu watches himself as he slips his slide-sandal off, just to tap it back on, barely stubbing his toe into the ground. They’re old, and Shouyou had offered to buy him new ones, but Atsumu is surprisingly sentimental. Shouyou’s fingers are cold. He tucks them under his armpits.</p><p>“Yer a great friend, the best, couldn’t ask for better,” Atsumu laughs then. It’s cute, genuine, sad. It’s one Shouyou had heard before, he usually followed up with a ‘don’t worry,’ or ‘it’ll be ok,’ or some mix of straight forward and poetry that just happens to be exactly what Atsumu (or whoever really) needs to hear because Shouyou is a great friend. None of that seems appropriate now. </p><p>“But yer not a good boyfriend. Normally, heh, normally I’m the one hearin’ that, even though I try my goddamn hardest, and ya know this one, this time, was my hardest try yet. And I could tell it was yours too. We tried so hard we thought we were in love.”</p><p>The way Atsumu tucks his keys into his hands, and his hands into the plush pockets of his goofy fuzzy coat that looks too much like a bathrobe to be sexy, and yet it’s Atsumu so it is kinda hot in a lazy, try-hard way, Shouyou knows he’s never seeing those keys again. He’ll hear them jangle on the other side of the door, and then down the hall, and that’ll be the last of them. Shouyou looks at the exposed curve of Atsumu’s neck, framed by that felt lapel and thinks about touching him. Touching his boyfriend like he has dozens of times. But his fingers are still cold, so he keeps them tucked.</p><p>“I was in love,” Atsumu says, and Shouyou wishes Atsumu would stop talking for once but when has Shouyou ever wanted that. “You weren’t- you, ya loved me Shouyou, ya still love me, but yer not in love.”</p><p>And because Shouyou is honest, and a gentleman, and a good friend, but mostly because Shouyou is tired and really wishes Atsumu had said this last week when he moved all his shit out of their apartment so that at least their last exchange could have been something sweet or at the very least dumb, Shouyou huffs a laugh and says, “Yeah. You’re probably right.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>It was about time to go take a trip to Brazil anyway. Shouyou was even considering making it less of a “trip” and more of a “career choice,” because why not throw some volleyball in there, he’d be doing it anyway.</p><p>Brazil always reminds him of better times. Adventure, and learning, and break ups over the phone. And hot flings with your ex’s rival setter turned “the only other Japanese person around, so yes of course lets relish our time together, whatever that means.” Wink wink. Yes, Shouyou will think about that part.</p><p>Besides, he has friends here, and Shouyou’s never been remiss for making new ones. And if he can do the volleyball thing, bury himself in sand and kiss the sun back as much as it kisses him then everything will be fine. As long as he’s making progress and moving at the same time he runs his feelings through his head, then Shouyou has something. He doesn’t know what, but it’s something.</p><p>There are moments though, where Hinata Shouyou cannot move anymore.</p><p>There are times you have to slow down, he knows that. He’s known that for long enough he certainly will not make himself relearn it.</p><p>So he sits down with a popsicle or a beer on the edge of the beach after running around all day and digs his toes into the cooling sand. He sits, and stares at the horizon where none of the mountains touch, and all he sees is ocean until all he sees is the dark, dark blue of the sky and sea holding hands.</p><p>What does it mean to be in love anyway?</p><p>Shouyou feels like he’s in love every day. That sting in his fingertips, the feeling of sweat napping in the brim of his hat under the summer sun as he plays and plays and plays. Yes, volleyball makes him feel in love, but it’s not just volleyball. It’s never just been volleyball.</p><p>It’s life. Or maybe it’s him. Or maybe it’s everyone around him, Shouyou has never put words on it before. But it’s most likely that first one.</p><p>Knowing that he still has the breath to say “I’m here,” makes him feel like he’s in love.</p><p>So what is he missing? All the pieces are already here.</p><p>Shouyou rests his head on his hands, touching the rim of his cold beer to his forehead. Is it normal to want to feel less whole?</p><p>Of course, the number one thing you always look forward to seeing when you’re having an existential crisis over recently lost love(???) is running into a different lost love. Your first, especially. Your first, very stupid love that should be in Japan.</p><p>“Oi,” Kageyama says. It scares the shit out of Shouyou.</p><p>“<i>What</i> are you doing here?” Shouyou asks, halfway between terror and exuberance. The spot his beer spilled into the sand sinks a little.<br/>
</p><p>“Gross,” is all Kageyama says. She looks at Shouyou’s beer can, all frowns.</p><p>Shouyou makes a few confused glances between his can and his friend before downing the rest of it. “The evil is gone, Kageyama, nothing to worry about.”</p><p>She keeps frowning though. Sits down next to where Shouyou just was, but keeps frowning.</p><p>“You never answered my first question, Yamayama-chan,” Shouyou says, poking Kageyama’s nose, beer can in-hand just to watch her nose crinkle. Shouyou laughs. He always did like that face. He loved it. Loves. Whatever.</p><p>“Can’t let you beat me,” Kageyama says.</p><p>Shouyou smiles and kicks up some sand, “Yes, of course, of course. Ok, well then, how’d you find me?”</p><p>“Didn’t try. You’re just orange.”</p><p>“And you assume, no matter the country you go to, out of the millions of people you might interact with, that I am the only orange person around? On earth?”</p><p>If Kageyama were any other person she’d laugh. Instead, she settles on the faintest of smiles. Another thing Hinata remembers loving, probably because he still does.</p><p>“No,” Kageyama says. “But you’re the only you.”</p><p>“Kageyama! I didn’t know you were a poet!”</p><p>Poetically, Kageyama kicks Shouyou’s foot. Shouyou stumbles even though he’s already sitting, and laughs as he shoves off of Kageyama to sit back up, the two of them smirking at their own stupidity, like they’re a decade younger and nothing’s changed. Because nothing has changed. They’re the same two doofuses they were at 16, but larger and more them than ever.</p><p>They’re the same them as their 19 year-old selves too, the same them that broke up over the phone. Each other’s first failed love. And yet, if they can laugh like this, how did they fail? Especially because Shouyou is pretty damn sure what he still feels is love. What else would you call it?</p><p>In fact it’s rather insulting to think it’s anything else. Sure it’s not romantic love, but it’s… it’s love.</p><p>It’s love but he’s not <i>in</i> love.</p><p>“Atsumu and I broke up,” Shouyou says. Yeah, that’s how you start a normal conversation.<br/>
</p><p>Kageyama perks up. If you can call it that. “You were dating?”</p><p>“... I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not Kageyama-chan. I’m pretty sure-”</p><p>“I was joking.”</p><p>“Wow ok. Didn’t know you could do that, seriously.”</p><p>“You spend too much time talking to Oikawa-san.”</p><p>Shouyou laughs. Silence gnaws at it until it’s all gone.</p><p>Shouyou’s empty beer can serves as the perfect instrument to play his woes on. He taps the thin metal with his nails.</p><p>“I don’t think I’ve ever been in love with anyone I’ve ever dated.”</p><p>Kageyama blinks at him, the same look she gave when Hinata first mentioned going to Brazil. And it’s the same look she gave when Hinata would rant about an awkward exchange at the grocery store. Somewhere between incredibly focused and incredibly disinterested. It’s a toss up really.</p><p>“I don’t think I have either,” she says.</p><p>“Hey!” Shouyou whines in mock offense.</p><p>Kageyama raises her eyebrows, “You’re the one who said it first.”</p><p>Shouyou laughs, for real this time, with a lungful of air and a smile that would leave bruises if it could.</p><p>“Isn’t it strange that I find that comforting? That we were never in love with each other?” It’s the same sense of relief Shouyou felt at the door that day, watching Atsumu say, out loud, that he didn’t want to live together, <i>be together</i>, anymore. A door shut and a gate lifted, Shouyou free to no longer… what? Pretend?</p><p>But it had never been an act. At no point was Shouyou trying to convince himself, or Atsumu, or Kageyama, or Oikawa-san, or Kenma, or Tsukishima, or Pedro, or <i>whoever</i>, that he was anyone other than himself, that he felt anything other than what he did. It was love. That’s what you call that kind of affection, that kind of affection that makes you want to see that person happy no matter what. Happy about themself, happy about their choices. Sometimes it’s cold, sometimes it feels like scrubbing a toothbrush over your brain, but at the end of the day it’s exactly what you needed.</p><p>And Shouyou supposes, he loves himself too. Maybe moreso, than anyone else. Was that it? Was he too selfish?</p><p>No, it couldn’t be, because if it was, Shouyou wouldn’t be a good friend either. And if there’s one fucking thing Shouyou is, before volleyball, before anything, it’s a good friend.</p><p>Where would he be without his friends? He loves them too much.</p><p>“I don’t think it’s something I’m capable of feeling,” Kageyama says, reminding Shouyou of the waking world.</p><p>“Don’t say that!” Shouyou says. It’s his turn to frown.</p><p>Kageyama shrugs. “Why?”</p><p>“Because it’s not true, of course you can love.”</p><p>Kageyama clicks her tongue, and shakes her head. She shakes her head and looks up at Shouyou, because apparently he’s standing now, beer can tapping the side of his leg impatiently.</p><p>“I can and I can’t,” Kageyama says. “It’s not a big deal. It’s true but it’s not bad.”</p><p>Dusting off sand from the seat of her shorts, Kageyama stands, hair blending into the sky. When she turns to Shouyou, her eyes catch the moonlight, and this time, her expression reads clearly one thing.</p><p>“We had fun didn’t we Shouyou?”</p><p>Shouyou huffs, then turns back toward civilization, sea louder now that he can’t see it.</p><p>“Yeah,” He smiles. “We had a lot of fun.”</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>